Prediction I made in post 12 is proving spot on. It would indeed have been a tough ask for this Autumn to be more dismal and depressing than the Summer but September is more than rising to the occasion.

It is rapidly turning into the worst September I can recall. It is utterly vile. Raining every day, 3 hrs sun daily average over the past 12 days and a toxic mix of cool days and mild nights. Absolutely diabolical with no redeeming qualities.

Not seen a temperature below 8C yet, which is unprecedented, and more dire 8-10C mins, 12-14C maxes, grey skies and rain coming up. Next week could even see double digit minima. Autumn colours will be desperately poor yet again.

This garbage makes me think this coming winter could be so bad that we end up with a frost-free month. It’s just the worst case scenario all the time this decade 

Thanks for sharing - look forward to hearing about your winter rants in the months ahead!

I'm plugging for a white Christmas this year (yes, snow in the south east).
Way to early to tell how things might pan out generally though.

edit: that sure does look like a horror show Tally. But I take confidence in how wrong the met office got things in their seasonal outlook October 2016.

It looks as though warmer and drier in the S and E is the trend from this week and through much of October. Great news. The warmer and drier it is, the better 

Here’s an update from me on my latest prognosis for the rest of Autumn 2017.

Last month there were mixed signals for October 2017, but I think the signal is now clearer regarding the likely synoptic pattern, due to subtle changes in various indices (ie ENSO, QBO) over the last month.

So, the overall signal for October now is pointing much more to a drier and more Anticyclonic-based month, with a fairly strong HP anomaly centred close to the UK, perhaps slightly to the east of the UK, allowing a warm S to SE flow on occasions. Temperatures probably ending up close to average to slightly above. Max temps may end up above normal with some chilly nights offsetting this somewhat.

November looks like being quite a cold month now but probably quite dry. Predominantly winds from the W or NW. The High Pressure anomaly looks like relocating into the North Atlantic, allowing spells of cool north to NE winds at times, possibly some significant cold from the north for a time. In fact out of the 5 current matches for Autumn 2017, (1962, 1985,2005, 2007, 2008), at least four of these Novembers featured a wintry spell at some stage.

In Summary:

October 2017: Quite dry, and anticyclonic at times.
November 2017: Cool and rather dry.

This week has been very poor with three out of the last five days recording zero sunshine and only two of the last eight managing 3 hours. You would think things could only get better but no, the next week looks awful beyond comprehension. Another dose of 21st Century toxic autumn hell. Dreadful S to SE winds bringing constant mild damp overcast with temperatures unlikely to fall below 10C all week or exceed 15C. Vile and nothing like what this time of year used to bring. Exactly what I predicted though.

Will confirm this diabolical September as the worst I can recall. Probably the worst since 1976. It’s been like 1998 without the few good bits. Can say goodbye to the prospects of any decent colour for another year after the horror show that will unfold over the next week.

I expect October to once again be dominated by the hideous S/SE muck that has typified it over the past 15 years. Not had a very sunny October since 2008 which is the last time this month has been dominated by westerlies. Sunny starts in 2012, 2015 and 2016 just gave way to gloom by the second third and every other October this decade has been awful from start to finish bar 2010 which managed a sunny end.

Wow. 

Do you work for the Daily Express?

The Daily Express make ridiculous predictions about the weather that always prove so far wide of the mark it's unreal. Mine on the other hand prove spot on.

If anything it's an even worse than the ghastly 2014. Sunshine is currently running only 2 hours ahead of that season at the same stage which turned out to be the dullest Autumn since 1968. Rain or drizzle almost every single day.

Since 21st Sept the mean min is running 2C above average (9.5C) with the mean max exactly equal to average (14.0C). It hasn't reached more than 16.4C for a month which is the worst 30-day period for warmth this early in the season since 1976. To be combined with such ridiculously horrible mild nights, including an unprecedented run of six consecutive 12C+ nights, is insufferable.

Really at the end of my tether with what is happening to the weather here. Even most of the autumns of the past 15 years, which I have loathed, have been better than this. The lack of any extremes or anything remotely interesting is just unreal.

Some of the models show hints of northern blocking as we go into November. Meanwhile, although there have been warmer spells than we have experienced this October, and this may not be among the warmest few overall, what's remarkable locally this month is the lack of any cold. here we are at 15th, and every day so far has had a maximum > 16C. No night has dropped below 7C, with the local mean temperature not far off 14C. A balmy start to autumn down here.

Interesting to start to reflect on this now- because of the warm October, the autumn will indeed average about half a degree above average. September and November both look to finish close to the LTM. (well-September did). 

I have been looking back at my predictions for this autumn which I made on this thread during the summer and I have to say, that there was a lot of things which I didn't get right. To begin with, I said that September would be like an extension to summer with all of that summer-like weather which we should have been getting during the summer itself. That didn't exactly happen though as instead of that, it was duller than average here during September with around average rainfall (Edinburgh Gogarbank was marginally drier than average with the botanic gardens in Edinburgh being very marginally wetter than average), and it was only very slightly warmer than average here.

I said that these summer-like conditions would continue into October which of course, was wrong to even begin with since those summer-like conditions during September never even happened in the first place in this part of the world. Having said that though, the temperature did get above 20°C on one occasion during October at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh. That was the first time that this had happened since the summer and even then, that didn't happen very often here. October was a warmer than average month as well by quite a long way, and it was a bit drier than average here during that month, although it was also duller than average once again.

Despite October being such a warm month though, we did get our first air frost of the season right at the end of that month and so, my predictions that we might have to wait well into the winter to get our first frost was also proved to be wrong in the end. As for this month, the mild, wet and stormy weather which I had predicted to be increasingly common-place and then taking us into the winter has still never materialised so that prediction wasn't correct either. In fact, this has actually been a slightly colder than average month here and also a much sunnier than average month. This has also been a very dry month here overall and had it not been for the fact that we had such a wet week last week, this month may well have ended up being our driest November on record.

With this month being colder than average here, we have had quite a lot of ground frosts during this month. We have had the odd air frost during this month as well, though not as many as you might expect given the number of ground frosts which there has been. The fact that the CET has still been warmer than average during this month tells us that it's not been colder than average everywhere, and I would imagine that there will be quite a lot of regional variation there.

Overall though, this has been a warmer than average autumn and a drier than average autumn. On both accounts, I got those predictions correct although I did say that it would get progressively wetter and more unsettled over time whereas it has actually ended up getting progressively drier here over time as the autumn has gone on. Despite the fact that this month has been much sunnier than average though, this autumn as a whole has been duller than average here which means that this autumn probably wasn't as sunny overall, as I had expected it to be, mainly because I had expected it to be a bit better in that department than what we got during October.

All in all then, this wasn't a great prediction overall but there were a few things there which i did get right and since I'm not an actual professional weather forecaster, I'm not going to be too unhappy with that.

Nice to read your post John- detailed and interesting, and sensibly honest about your predictions; good that you feel free to post without any acclaimed expertise and as you said, some correct parts.

I have probably learnt a lot here by watching Gavin P.'s videos because every time that he does either a monthly forecast or seasonal forecast, he always does an appraisal of how that forecast went in a separate but short video once that month or season in question is over.

Basically, I'm just doing the same thing with the only difference that instead of waiting until the autumn is over (as Gavin P. would probably do), i have done that a few days before the end of the autumn because I feel that you can often have a good enough idea of how that month or season has gone, to be able to do a good appraisal of that before the final statistics for that month or season have actually been officially released by the Met Office.

That is particularly true when it is an entire season which you are covering, and the fact that I have kept a number of Excel spreadsheets up to date which contains all of the data which I have been able to gather for my three local stations has helped quite a lot with that as well as I have then been able to keep appropriate up to date running totals, averages and anomalies for those stations as a result and report those back to the appropriate threads on this forum.

Of course, I could now do the same thing for the coming winter (it could be good after all, if we could get a cold and snowy winter for a change and I will be keeping a similar close eye on what happens there), but that will now be the subject for a different thread rather than this one.

I'm not one for making outlandish predictions but I'm beginnng to feel as if the train is coming. Darrens long overdue wait might be about to come to an end.

Where did that easterly come from? Watch this space